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Branding done for Type Lab MNL, the first ever conference on letters, design, and the creative chemistry of typography in the Philippines.

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Organized by Type Kita and Abbey Sy, Type Lab MNL was a conference on letters, design, and the creative chemistry of typography, the first of its kind in the Philippines. The two-day conference, held at the Roofdeck Events Space of Century City Mall, Makati, featured 8 of the country's biggest names in the lettering and type industry, namely Abbey Sy, Googly Goeys (Tippy Go), Jelvin Base, Patrick Cabral, Kay Aranzanso, June Digan, John Ed De Vera, and Fozzy Dayrit.

As one of Abbey Sy's interns (Team ABC!), she entrusted me with the ginormous and extremely pressuring task of branding and creating various collaterals for the whole event. This is probably one of my biggest projects up to date, and I'm extremely grateful for all the trust they placed in me.

1: LOGO & BRANDING

My co-intern Cristina helped me come up with the moodboard for the project. When we were briefed about Type Lab MNL, we searched for pegs and other projects to give us a clearer direction of where we were headed. We decided to incorporate the idea of a chemistry lab and the craft-like quality of handlettering and typography.

Based on the moodboard, I came up with different studies and drafts for the logo and letter types to be used. Here are a few of the first experiments below.

The study on the upper right was selected. Inspired by the idea of tubes and flowing chemicals and tubes within a lab, I custom created the letters and fixed the "E" to flow into a beaker. It was later on revised into an inkwell to keep it more attuned to the idea of lettering, and this was the final logo:

I also created a few icons and illustrations to complement the logo type, and these icons were used in the various collaterals such as the website, tickets and IDs, among others.

2: POSTERS

For the main promotional materials of the event, I created a key visual using the main logo and some of the illustrated elements. These were later on translated to a poster that was printed and put up during the actual event.

Type Kita and Team ABC teamed up with Shutterpanda for some of the promotional materials. The photos and video below are samples of the collaterals created under the main branding. These were used on various social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.

I created the OBB (opening billboard) animation on After Effects. The OBB was used at the end of the different promotional videos, which can be seen on the YouTube channel of the video below.

Other promotional materials included a venue map.

4: THE WEBSITE

Along with the Facebook collaterals on the Type Kita Facebook page and Instagram, I was asked to design a separate website that contained collective information about the event such as the speakers, event details, and FAQs, among others. The website incorporated the illustrated elements and the same paper-craft type texture I used for the main visuals.

Below are some of the final dummy layouts I passed on to the web developer.

I created separate graphics for several different event collaterals as well, namely IDs, tickets, shirts, and a loop video that was played for the duration of the event.

The main visual of the ID played around with the periodic table of elements, in tandem with the whole "lab" feel. The element was just the initials of the ID holder. The organizers, brand partners, and media partners got their own customized IDs.

The loot bags/kits distributed at the event featured lettering by Abbey Sy. Inside, there were different goodies provided by our sponsors, and a notebook with the same design on the bag and the Type Lab MNL logo as well.

The loop video is the final life-sucking brainchild of this project, featuring animations of the logo and the key visual as well as the sponsor logos. It took me around two whole days to cram this baby but I survived, thank goodness.

Participants check out the cool Type Lab MNL exhibit organized by Type Kita and featuring submitted works by type nerds around the country.

Speaker John Ed De Vera sharing his love for all things creative.

Participants testing pens and showing off their amazing lettering skills at some of the pop-up booths around the event space.

Speaker Patrick Cabral sharing his stories and experiences as an artist and designer.

The speakers holding a Q&A panel. From L-R: Maan Agsalud, head of Type Kita; me at the laptop serving the projector some serious side-eye (#techproblems), June Digan, John Ed De Vera, Patrick Cabral, Abbey Sy, Kay Aranzanso, Tippy Go of Googly Gooeys, Jelvin Base, and not in the photo, Fozzy Dayrit.